Thursday November 5, 12.15 - 13.00
Speaker will be online, participation possible together in H1 Humlab [map] and on Zoom.
On Thursday the 5th of November DIGSUM, together with FODI at Mid Sweden University, will host a seminar as part of the new seminar series celebrating a decade of interdisciplinary digital scholarship at Umeå University. Throughout the semester, DIGSUM will host monthly seminars featuring leading researchers, emerging scholars, and invited speakers working at the intersection of digital technology and society. In this seminar Tove Westberg, Lund University, will talk about “Darknet and the rise of dead drops – the Swedish condition”.
Abstract
The Darknet, often portrayed as inherently illicit, is fundamentally an encryption technology enabling anonymous communication. In Sweden, this has facilitated trade through cryptomarkets, including local platforms such as Flugsvamp. Though primarily used for drug trafficking, these markets also sell goods like stolen financial data and forged IDs, typically delivered via postal services such as Postnord. However, in early 2025, I observed a shift: vendors are increasingly using dead drops instead of postal delivery. Here, a courier leaves a package at a set location and shares the coordinates with the buyer. While common in Russia, particularly on the now-defunct Hydra marketplace (Goonetilleke et al., 2023), dead drops have had limited impact on Western cryptomarkets (Aldridge & Askew, 2017). My talk explores why this shift is occurring in Sweden, what it reveals about evolving drug distribution, and what it suggests about the relationship between darknet trade and the Swedish criminal landscape.
Tove Westberg is a criminologist at Lund University studying Darknet and digital constellations, focusing on online-offline intersections and how digital environments shape criminal practices.
Seminars take place over lunch once a month on Thursdays at Umeå University. All students, researchers, and interested colleagues are warmly welcome! Zoom links will be available for some of the events, stay tuned! For more information see [here].
For those participating online, the Zoom-meeting for all seminars in the seminar series is:
https://umu.zoom.us/j/67690806973
Meeting ID: 676 9080 6973